Man charged after videotaping police

I don't see a problem with cameras recording what happens on your property. I guess the problem for the cops is having what they do recorded, so it seems like they may be setting an example with this guy.

Hey! - don't you know?

In a Police State, the Police CAN videotape you but you CAN NOT videotape Police.

Since I'm someone attempting to become one of our boys in blue, I see no problem being video taped. If he wasn't doing anything wrong, why would he attempt to stop people from seeing this video tape?

HHHmmm....maybe he was harrassing these boys, or threatening them?

Maybe they just don't want you to know their tactics that have recently been changed?

No clue.

My suggestion would be to use digital wireless camera whenever making a video of the police. This will prevent them from seizing the video. You can then send the taped action to a multitude of media outlets and it will also allow you to use the video as evidence to sue their butts off in civil court.

Originally posted by Souljah
Hey! - don't you know?

In a Police State, the Police CAN videotape you but you CAN NOT videotape Police.

Welcome to 1984. What was on the videotape? Did the cops do something bad? What was the big deal, what was the complaint? Do the rules they invoked about his videotape not apply to the police? So if they had doen the videotape they might be charged the same had they not gotten the proper paperwork ahead of time?

Betcha they coulda been.

BUT, it is pretty ugly when someone who doesn't know all the laws, probably never even imagined he was doing anything illegal makes a complaint and then gets charged for doing something in his own house. The police have made a bad PR mistake at the very least and I'll bet the ACLU is beating down the guy's door right now!

Originally posted by Souljah
Hey! - don't you know?

In a Police State, the Police CAN videotape you but you CAN NOT videotape Police.

The guy tapes the detective doing something he thinks is unlawful. The guy then brings the tape to the police as evidence in his case against the offending detective. The 'brothers in blue' look out for thier kin and rather than turn on one of their own, they charge the guy based on another law which wasn't intended for that purpose, but could be interepreted as such.

The guy is now offered a deal - if he forgets about what the detective did and relenquishes the evidence, the 'brothers in blue' forget about the charges brought against the guy and everyone (except the guy and his kids) lives happily ever after.

Unfortunately, a lot of us need to experience injustice firsthand before we know enough to play ball.

[edit on 29-6-2006 by vinrock]

This is scary. I imagine they didn't think this would go public. Just wave a felony charge at the dad and son and then placate them with a "deal". Makes you wonder how many times this happens without it getting attention. And is anyone finding it easy to believe the detective involved was acting inappropriatly when they pull a stunt like this in retaliation. Well, you know what they say about power.

How exactly is the DA going to argue to a jury that a home security camera is "Illegal" when it tapes a police officer invading your personal space instead of a criminal? And will he be able to keep a straight face while doing it? No, I don't think this case will be going to court, depends on how backwards his county is.

The guy had every right to record what goes on at his property with video. The article says he had warning signs that some states seem to require and his wife said he told the detective that there were cameras.

I think the Nashua police are trying to apply wiretap laws wrongly.

This guy is going to win his case when it comes up.

Sad case...
This doesn't look like the nicest of families (history of trouble)
but that doesn't excuse this corrupt action... this is obviously just CYA behavior..

We expect Police to be better than that, but we are lucky if they are even "that"

THis is quite obviously a sign of police abuse...
I mean for real... "you have to leave the premises until we can get a search warrant"
uhhh, that is what search warrants are for... aint got one- then so sorry charlie...
If they have reason to arrest, then do so... you cant play it both sides...

Is it just me, or does it sound like the same loosness of restraint being applied to terror cases, has washed over into normal routine law?

I dont like it, not one bit...
shame on you detective... you should have read the "security camera in use" sign to avoid embarrassment, not intimidation and breaking the law...
If a citizen would have done the same actions, then they would be in jail for a few years...
but a detective without cause or warrant is spared, due to his connections...

Thats just plain stupid to think that a security camera placed on your property can actualy get you in trouble when you do catch something on it, It totaly defeats the purpose of having it.
The only conclusion i can come to is that this officer of the law was not doing his job properly ( so many officers get big in the head over thier job to begin with it comes to no surprise.) and the nashua police got scared and acted quickly but wrongly and is now going to get dragged through court over it.

If this guy ends up losing his case i will be completely disgusted in my country some of the stuff as it is realy iritates me but this is going way to far.

Originally posted by MadMachinist

If this guy ends up losing his case i will be completely disgusted in my country some of the stuff as it is realy iritates me but this is going way to far.

Oh... BELIEVE ME... there are more than enough public cases to read up on and get sick.

Here are a few examples, courtesy of The Star Ledger, from my neighborhood (NJ), of what I observe as the legal system gone awry.

Each of the following cases represents a murder gone unsolved here in the Garden State.

CASE STUDY NO. 1

Sean Taylor and Johnny Torres Colon died Sept. 11, 2002, in a house on Newark's 13th Avenue, victims of an apparent robbery. Both were shot in the head and left in a ransacked basement filled with possible clues.

Less than three weeks later, Bloods gang member Tewhan Butler, out on bail in another murder case, was charged with the slayings, largely on the word of two eyewitnesses. But at trial, the witnesses proved shaky and there was little physical evidence.

Fernard Williams, the crime scene investigator, admitted on the stand he did not dust for fingerprints. Nor did he sample bloodstains, examine footprints in the mud outside or look for the killer's DNA under the victims' fingernails, according to attorneys.

None of the detectives traced calls Taylor had received on his cell phone just before he was killed. And a spent shell casing on the basement floor went undiscovered until after police left, when Taylor's mother stumbled across it.

"If you were to grade this crime scene, you would give it an F," defense attorney Michael Robbins told the jury in his summation.

CASE STUDY NO. 2

Terrell Robinson was charged with killing a man outside a Newark bar in 1999. But relatives told an investigator working on Robinson's defense that a cousin actually committed the crime. They told the investigator that the cousin probably would confess if questioned.

Investigator David Rubin of the Essex County Prosecutor's Office told Robinson's relatives to come to him if they wanted to make a statement. They showed up late for an appointment and missed him at the office. They had no other contact with Rubin before the trial.

In court, Rubin testified he never looked for Robinson's relatives. After family members took the witness stand for the defense and told their story, the jury took less than a half-hour to acquit Robinson. The cousin was never arrested.

Superior Court Judge Hector DeSoto, who presided over the trial, took the rare step of criticizing the Prosecutor's Office from the bench.

"It is becoming very, very concerning to this court," he said, "as to the conduct generally of the Essex County Prosecutor's Office ... and the fact they take the word of anyone and prosecute it in the face of overwhelming evidence against those facts."

CASE STUDY NO. 3

Alto Harris was a likable man who sold hot dogs on Springfield Avenue in Newark. After he wheeled his cart to its storage place on South 7th Street on Feb. 28, 2000, someone beat him to death.

Three months later, police came across a homeless man, Tommy Fluker, who said he had watched the killing from 50 yards away. He identified the killer as Larry Jackson, a 36-year-old resident of the area who was known to the locals as "Knowledge." Fluker's testimony was enough to get a grand jury to indict Jackson.

But when it came time for trial in April 2003, Fluker could not be located at his usual haunt, a shack behind the Newark Knights motorcycle club.

Finding him might not have been enough for authorities: Fluker had testified in another case that he had poor vision and could not afford glasses.

The charges against Jackson were dismissed.

CASE STUDY NO. 4

In February 2001, Lakisha Shiggs told Newark police detectives and investigator Quovella Meawhether of the Prosecutor's Office that she opened the door of her first-floor apartment on North Munn Avenue after a friend, Kaseem Richmond, was shot in the hallway.

She said the dying Richmond told her, "Kisha, call an ambulance; Kiki shot me." Police said that was a reference to Shawki Arrington, and he was charged with the murder.

But in a May 2002 memo asking Superior Court Judge Michael Casale to dismiss the charges against Arrington, Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Nicole Amato wrote the defense had produced two witnesses who said Shiggs was in a second-floor apartment, getting her hair done, during the shooting.

Amato said she confronted Shiggs about the discrepancy and that Shiggs said she had lied because "officers" threatened to take away her children if she did not give a statement. Her memorandum does not name the officers.

Casale dismissed the charges.

CASE STUDY NO. 5

Ahmad Hagler, a former Morristown High School football star, and two friends were charged in April 2002 with the robbery and murder of a Newark bodega owner.

Edward Tyler, the only eyewitness tying Hagler to crime, testified before the grand jury that he could not see the faces of the assailants but had identified them by their "skin tone." The grand jury threw out the charges against Hagler, who had been put in jail.

The prosecutor, Jerry Chambers, presented much of the same evidence to a new grand jury a few months later. Only this time, instead of calling Tyler as a witness, Chambers read from his previous testimony and left out the part where Tyler admitted not seeing their faces, according to a brief filed in the case by Hagler's attorney, John McMahon.

The new grand jury indicted Hagler for murder. But Superior Court Judge Paul Vichness, after reading McMahon's brief, threw out the indictment.

For the complete article, visit The Star Ledger

[edit on 29-6-2006 by vinrock]

[edit on 29-6-2006 by vinrock]

I can't see how they can consider recording anything on your own property is illegal wiretapping. Its actually as absurd as it first sounds.

A different take. If the recording party is part of the conversation, then there should not be any law that is broken. However, if the party was recorded by another without consent and the recording was not part of the conversation including the recorder, then a law was broken. A federal law.

Trust me, it happened in my divorce and I was advised to not present evidence in court even though my kids interest was at stake. I was told that if the evidence of any recordings that I allegedly may have made, that did not include me in the conversations, were presented to the court, I could be charged with a Federal offense. Even though the alleged recordings may have been made in my home on my phone. (Conversations may have been of wife making plans of leaving and taking kids to Canada to boyfriends residence by first telling them they would be going to Disney Land.)

Good news is, I won, have had my 3 kids the last ten years, and the alleged recordings never made it into the court room. Not that I would do anything like that.

Not quite the same as recording the police, but I think the principle is the same. It revolves around consent. Sorry, if that is a little too graphic.

Well, that is a disturbing story. If I were the guy in there, though, I would have made copies of the video if it had something incriminating on it, to be safe.